


Capable

by horatiofrog



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Internal Monologue, what is my child capable of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horatiofrog/pseuds/horatiofrog
Summary: Matt considers Lainie's armor-piercing question regarding Clay and his capabilities.





	Capable

Moonlight sparkled into the cold coffee at the bottom of Matt Jensen’s cup. The kitchen was empty, devoid of all other life. For once—_he thought_—his family was tucked away in their beds, asleep.

_“Can you tell me, in the past two years, that you haven’t been surprised by what Clay is capable of?”_

Lainie’s words spiraled through his brain, over and over and over. He sat back in his chair, glancing past the pass-through to the living room, and let them fester.

Was he surprised? Yes. Clay had always had a knack for surprising him with his talents; his failures, his fears. For a moment he recalled the determined eight year-old who had found a stray dog a block over and pleaded with him and Lainie to keep it. _“I can take care of him,” _Clay had argued. _“I can feed and walk him. Please? He needs a home, and they’ll kill him at the shelter…” _Matt chuffed a little. Roscoe had been a good dog, and while Clay had grown a little lax on the feeding and walking, he did make sure to do his share. Matt remembered the day they’d had to put Roscoe to sleep – age, arthritis and numerous tumors were taking their toll – and he had watched as his son wept like a baby as he’d hugged his beloved pet good-bye. That had been Clay’s freshman year; before the troubles began.

The bitter taste of coffee grounds broke Matt from his reverie. Sure, his son had his problems – what child didn’t, anymore? – but on the whole, Clay seemed to be adjusting fairly well. He had his father’s personality, and more than a few of his interests, but Clay’s tenacity, his perseverance, his almost black-and-white sense of justice? That was all Lainie. And nowhere did it shine through more than in the whole mess with Hannah Baker.

Was it willful blindness that kept him and Lainie from seeing the truth? That Clay wasn’t just a classmate, was more than a coworker? Or was it the fact that he himself hadn’t _wanted_ to see it?

Matt had known Clay felt things very intensely. He knew that people’s emotions tended to ebb and flow at a fairly consistent rate thanks to the countless psychology courses in college, but nothing prepared him for his child’s mood swings. When Clay thought he was right, even at a young age, there was no dissuading him from the matter. _“Dad, Marcus is just…_wrong_! There’s no way Kat took that whole jar of jellybeans! I mean, she can’t even _eat_ them because of her teeth!” _his five year-old had declared one rainy afternoon after being asked about his day. Clay’s friend Kat had been accused of stealing a large jar of jellybeans, and Clay had come home fuming. _“Everyone knows Steve Maddox took them anyway! He’s just…he’s being a jerk! And Marcus is helping him!” _A few days later, Clay had come home looking like a cat that had eaten a canary. _“Guess where the jellybean jar was, Dad? In Steve Maddox’s cubby. Just like I said it was!” _

And God forbid that his child was proven wrong. _“Dad, there’s more to Justin than I thought,” _Clay had told him one night during Justin’s stay in juvenile detention. _“I mean, he was always this…stupid jock, you know? An asshole like the rest of them. But now…maybe…maybe I was wrong. I mean, he _was_ an asshole. Remember when I puked all over dinner a few months back? Yep, Justin was there, forcing beer down my throat_ _while the rest of__ them watched. I dunno…maybe something changed, I guess? I mean…d’you think he’s okay there, in juvie?” _

Matt felt the lump in his throat tighten. Clay had not been Justin’s friend – not at first. Even now, knowing why his child had smuggled the homeless boy into his room, Matt could tell that Justin hadn’t been a friend of his son’s. The conversation he’d had with Clay after their family's explosive fight had cemented that fact firmly in his mind. _“Justin’s…not our problem anymore,” _his son had informed him. _“He had a roof over his head, new clothes, and a new phone, apparently, and he didn’t want any of it. So why are we even bothering?”_

Clay’s attitude had changed about Justin. But other things troubled Matt. His son had been busted for marijuana possession. He began skipping an inordinate amount of school. Clay seemed to get into more than his share of fights, though he knew that his son wasn’t much in the way of violence. He’d keyed another boy’s car out of pique. True, a lot of that boiled down to Hannah Baker again, but it pained Matt to think of just how far his son would go to achieve his ends.

The professor shivered at that thought. He remembered the night Clay had straggled in around one in the morning, looking as though he’d gone twelve rounds with a heavyweight boxer. _“I did it, Dad,_” Clay had said proudly. _“I fucking got him to say it.” _He refused to elaborate, and a day later Matt had waited anxiously in the emergency room, waiting for test results to determine just how badly Clay had been beaten by an older boy in order to gain his prize.

That was nothing compared to Clay releasing Hannah Baker’s tapes. Matt glanced around the kitchen, reliving that awful night. _“You ruined my fucking life!” _he recalled his child screaming at Lainie, who stubbornly refused to give up any ground. Never mind the consequences of his actions – Clay had possessed tunnel vision when it came to Hannah Baker.

And God, the _secrets._ Even now, his son kept his secrets as though they were in an iron vault. They’d come in, crashing like waves, one after the other. Clay’s affection with Hannah Baker. His attempt to make the Walker kid confess. Smuggling Justin into the house. Somehow _detoxing_ Justin off of a heroin addiction. His disappearances. The fights. Threatening the Walker kid with a _gun_, before pointing it at his own head…

Matt took a long, deep breath. Thank _God_ for Justin. If he hadn’t been there...well, Matt didn’t want to think about that.

He remembered his words to Lainie, just hours before: “Do you really think Clay is capable of taking life?”

Her words back: “Can you say, in the past two years, that you haven’t been surprised by what Clay is capable of?”

Now, in the dark, Matt sat deep in thought. Could Clay actually take a life? Deliberately, in cold blood, with malice aforethought?

The security tape certainly seemed to say so. Lainie's words and actions actually seemed to say that _she_ thought so. He'd felt for his son, when it sank in that his own _mother_ thought him able to end a life so callously.

But Matt thought differently. He liked to think that even during this turbulent and dangerous time, he knew his child. The same child that fought to save a stray animal; the determined son that installed an addict in his room and decided to adopt him; the boy capable of so much love that it nearly broke him.

_Yes, Lainie,_ he thought, _Clay is forever surprising me with what he is capable of. But some things are absolute. I know my child. And my child is no more capable of rationally committing cold-blooded murder than you or I are. And what does it say about us that we could possibly think he could?_

**Author's Note:**

> Lainie's question struck a chord with me. Yes, she's much like Clay in that she's determined and perserverant, but I mean, come on...she kind of jumps right at the idea that Clay could commit murder a little too easily for me. Yes, she softens it by saying he may not have been in his right mind, and she's got a tape clearly backing that theory up, but...it hurt when Clay realized that his own _mother_ believed he'd killed Bryce. Forgive me if I've offended anyone.


End file.
